There are about a thousand sources that confirm most of what is in the book.
## Hislop said there were between 240 & 270. ##
I never finished it for the reasons you mentioned in the end of your post. Although Hislop’s methodology has come under fire in recent years because his sources are no longer extant, it’s enough to make you continue your research. A more current study was written by Lew White called Fossilized Customs. Lew is a Messianic Yahudi, Hebrew scholar and etymologist. "Come out of Her my people" is another good fact ladden read which traces the false roots and drops its legacy squarely in the lap of the Roman Catholic Church, many of whose rites and traditions stem directly from the Babylonian mystery religion.
## I have read the book several times - at least five.
Unfortunately for those who rely on TTB, its information about Babylonian religion is almost wholly worthless. As can be seen by reading a book like "Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia". Which is no older than the 1990s, is written by authors who were familiar with their subject, is fully illustrated, accessible to the reader who knows nothing of the subject, & is a very good book to begin with all round.
Hislop's method is invalid - for instance, he treats a Mexican "baptism" as evidence of Babylonian practice. This is like saying that tartan kilts must be from Assyria because there was a military officer called the Tartan (see 2 Kings). Or that because there was a Scottish King David, David's fight with Goliath must have taken place in Scotland. There is a Talmudic legend that Nimrod came into possession of the coat of skins of Adam - this is "evidence":
- that the kilt is almost as ancient as the human race
& explains why Jacob made a plaid for Joseph
& why the kilt is referred to in Deuteronomy
& why the Levites kept the Urim & Thummim in sporrans
& the true nature of the "horns" of the Levites played at Jericho - they were chanters, obviously
& what the "Babylonish garment" was that Achan took
& why Michal despised David when she saw him perform his Highland fling
As long as one is set on finding kilts, sporrans, bagpipes, clans, Scotch whisky, Highland Games, the Gaelic language, lochs, Nessie (aka
Leviathan), glens, thistles, & all things Scottish in the Bible, one is certain to succeed. And that is the way in which TTB treats its own evidence, to make its case - except that it is written seriously, & not as a joke: unlike the examples just given. What are the Hebrides, if they are not called after "the sons of Eber" ?
One cannot without testing one's argument take what happens in Mexico in 1520 AD, as evidence of what happened in ancient Iraq in 2181 BC - but TTB does exactly this. Still less can one reason from the later date to the earlier, & treat what one interprets - perhaps wrongly (in fact, quite wrongly, but TTB is more sure of its facts than many more learned authors would be) - as Mexican baptism, as evidence of baptism in ancient Iraq. Let alone treat either as evidence of the meaning of Catholic baptism. TTB does all these things - but never questions its own logic: it seems never to occur to TTB that if it is going to condemn an entire religion, it needs to have reasoning, history, & a method that are rock solid.
He paints the Biblical Nimrod as a tyrannical idolater. Using his methods (& standard of proof, & types of evidence) one could prove that Nimrod is none other than Melchizedek, and that Shem was first king of Scotland, having previously been first Patriarch of the Church in Babylon. TTB has a chapter on "The Child in Assyria" - "The Kilt in Assyria" seems to be called for.
As for a "mystery religion" - what could be more mysterious than Burns Night, when what is "evidently" (a favourite Hislop word, that) a mystic representation of the fire-god (hence the word "Burns") is slit open with a dagger as the sacred meal of the Scot ? If the haggis (the name is clearly a corruption of Hebrew "haggith", "festive") is not thought to be a god, why is it accompanied with music when brought into assembled company, & a speech addressed to it ? From all this it is evident that Burns Night is a mystic rite of some kind. Maybe this is how Presbyterians worship - they, not us Papists, are the ones with the burning bush emblem
. Using TTB, it would be easy to "prove" that "Peresh-bait-ra-ion", or "Presbyterian", is a "Chaldee" word.
That is exactly how the book builds its argument - anything can be explained as evidence for this mystery religion, because there is no test anywhere in the book for the validity of the reasoning - it would not be difficult to interpret "Star Trek" as evidence of the "Babylon Mystery Religion": Mr Spock is a Vulcan; Nimrod in TTB is the same as Vulcan; therefore, Nimrod must have invented space travel, gone to Vulcan, colonised it, & become the Patriarch & king of Vulcan. What could be more likely ? All one need do, is take something for which there is already a perfectly good explanation, invent an explanation of it which allows it to be taken as evidence of the Babylon Mystery Religion, and conclude that it is indeed evidence of that. And then, draw conclusions from that, to build up one's case a bit more - until one has a mixture of fictions, illogic, half-truths, & a fact or two balancing on a tiny foundation, like an inverted pyramid.
He too often relies not on argument from properly ascertained facts, but on (rather shaky) logic - & logic is not enough: it needs to be checked by historical evidence. Otherwise, the fact that war is illogical would lead to the conclusion that no one ever went to war. Good logic, but bad history.
He also relies on what he calls "Chaldee" - basically, Aramaic. As he uses the word (see Preface Two of TTB) he makes it clear that he applied the word to the language of Babylonia before Abraham. Which is not Aramaic, but Akkadian, a much older Semitic language. Before Akkadian, Sumerian was spoken - and Sumerian is unrelated to any other language. So the word-derivations in TTB are valueless & very misleading. He shows no knowledge of Akkadian - no texts in it are quoted, not even in translations by Layard or Rawlinson (to both of whom he does at least refer)
He frequently gets his facts wrong - for example, he states that the god Bacchus is the same as the martyr & saint Bacchus: even though he quotes from a source which lists the names of the saint with those of his companions in martyrdom.
To prove there was a god called "the Eternal Boy" worshipped at Rome, he gives a reference to him from book Four of Ovid's poem "Metamorphoses". Nothing wrong with that - except that he quotes the title "eternal boy" from a myth set in Greece, with fictional characters. This is like using "King Kong" as evidence for the history of the film industry because the male leading character is a film director; or "Planet of the Apes", as evidence for the history of time-travel by NASA. Yet the worship of the "Eternal Boy" is supposed to be evidence for the history of religion at Rome before Christ. It is not healthy for a case to be argued using fictional texts as though they told of facts. Such a free & easy attitude to evidence allows one to prove anything under the sun
He wrongly describes the monstrance as a sun - because he mistakes the homage paid to the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance, with homage to the monstrance itself. So he thought Catholics worshipped images of the sun, just as the Babylonians had worshipped the sun.
He says that "Bel" means "to confound": which is a mistake. Bel in Akkadian means "lord", just as in Hebrew. "To confuse" comes from a completely separate root "bll" - with two LLs, not one. Nor does "Bel" mean "heart" - "libbu" does. There is no god "El-Bar" - this is based on a misreading of a cuneiform text.
I agree - people should research all this. I have - & I keep finding errors of fact & poor logic.
His mistakes aren't entirely his fault - there were two difficulties: excavation in Iraq (as it now is) had not yet been set up on a properly scientific basis; & Akkadian was still very imperfectly understood (the first complete Sumerian texts were not discovered until 1877, about 12 years after Hislop died - the first Sumerian grammar was not published until 1923, sixty years after the first Akkadian grammar in 1863, which was published in Germany; by which time TTB had reached its final form)
Second, he relied upon books many of which were much older than the beginning of the rediscovery of ancient Iraq. The Greek & Latin authors he relied on did not know cuneiform, or Akkadian, or Sumerian.
I've read some of Michael Scheifler's pages - he is much better informed, but he still uses antiquated & partly unreliable sources, such as Strong's Concordance. ##
Do you not celebrate the Resurrection, Carey?
